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Tue, 31 Mar 2015 17:57:01 +0000en-UShourly1Um, LCWR, a “Futurist” may not have been the best choice.http://www.catholicvote.org/um-lcwr-a-futurist-may-not-have-been-the-best-choice/
http://www.catholicvote.org/um-lcwr-a-futurist-may-not-have-been-the-best-choice/#commentsThu, 09 Aug 2012 03:05:52 +0000Tom Crowehttp://www.catholicvote.org/discuss/index.php?p=34274National Catholic Register’s guest blogger Ann Carey reports that Most Reverend Robert Carlson, archbishop of St. Louis, a fine, fine bishop, gave a “warm welcome” to the sisters at the assembly of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, encouraging them to figure out how to respond well to the doctrinal assessment handed down by the Vatican.

And then this happened:

In the first open session, the featured speaker, futurist Barbara Marx Hubbard, was led through the assembly hall at the Millennium Hotel by several sisters who were waving orange scarves draped over their arms.

Once on the stage, the sisters moved in a circle around Hubbard as they raised and lowered the scarves and the assembly was asked to extend their hands in blessing while singing, “Spirit of vision, Spirit of life! Spirit of courage, be with her now! Wisdom and Truth be on her lips!”

Hubbard is an engaging speaker, and she knew how to connect with her audience, though the futurist terminology she used left this journalist reaching for a dictionary to look up “noosphere,” “cosmo genesis,” synergistic convergence” and “Christification.”
Hubbard believes that we are at a critical time in humanity, a “tipping point” that will lead to either breakdown or evolutionary breakthrough. She made vague references throughout her talk to the “crisis” the LCWR was facing and encouraged the members by saying that breakthroughs often happen only after chaos or crisis. Furthermore, she proclaimed, the LCWR members were just the kind of people to lead humanity to this breakthrough because of their “evolutionary capacities” that had guided the organization over the past 40 years.

“So my conclusion is that you are the best seedbed I know for evolving the Church and the world in the 21st century,” Hubbard said.

“Almost all structures are top down,” Hubbard continued, giving the examples of nations, states, organized religions and corporations. “So what is needed today,” she continued, “is a radical reform of existing institutions from their top-down version.”

Sometimes a facepalm is the best first reaction.

“Futurist.” Orange scarves. Chant circles. “Evolving the Church.”?

(Aside: Orange? Orange isn’t even a liturgical color! What good could those possibly do?)

For kicks, check out the insight and long-sightedness of she whom the LCWR values:

By 2012…we can have through the internet a synergy engine that will connect what’s created, in every field and function, if you can see it as a wheel of co-creation, and when that creativity comes together, we’ll see that we have the capacity to feed, to house, to clothe, to have the energy we need, and to begin our future as a global, co-creative, and eventually universal species in a universe undoubtedly filled with life our crisis is the birth of a universal humanity.

This video is from 2010. By the end of 2012, eh? “Utopia” really is an alluring concept. And it really does mean “No place.”

But back to the LCWR conference: Carey won’t be able to report about the executive sessions—media has been explicitly excluded (marked out by the loud green name tags. No word on whether they have to ring bells while walking the halls shouting “unclean!”) along with any sisters who consider “confidentiality” to include “I can talk about this with the media”—but if this display and Marx Hubbard’s exhortation for this great “seedbed” to “evolve the Church” amidst Orange Power is any indication, I think the Vatican has a better chance of getting a positive response from the Society of St. Pius the X. They may be cranks, but at least they have good liturgy.

I do, of course, hope I am proven wrong and the Holy Spirit moves in their hearts to, as a priest once thundered about the Jesuits from a pulpit in the diocese of Arlington on the feast of St. Philip Neri, “get over their infantile rebellion and become, once more, Catholic!”

Because we need them. All of them: the sisters, the SSPXers, the Jesuits. We need all hands on deck for what’s coming. That’s my futurist statement.

I recently heard from a source within the Department of Health and Human Services who indicated to me that people within the organization are “terrified” of what is going to happen. Not just with the mandate, which Catholics are combating eloquently in the Fortnight for Freedom. They’re afraid that the entire health care legislation will come tumbling down.

If that happens, they will lose money, staff, and jobs – hiring has been on the rise at HHS. They’ll also lose their ideological victory. It doesn’t take someone on the inside to tell you that they don’t want that to happen.

In the mean time, Catholics for Equality are worried too. Last night, they joined together in Baltimore to protest the Fortnight for Freedom effort. Why? Because they recognize that the Church continues to move away from their idea of Catholicism:

“The bishops no longer represent Catholics in the pews on so many social issues, from contraception to legal equality for LGBT people,” said Joseph Palacios, Director of the Catholics for Equality Foundation. “We also reject the bishops’ election year campaign that they are now somehow victims of religious liberty.”

According to a new report released today by the Public Religion Research Institute, 57% of American Catholics do not believe that the right to religious liberty is being threatened in America today. The report also notes that 65% of Catholics believe that most employers should be required to provide their employees with health care plans that cover contraception at no cost and that 63% believe religiously affiliated agencies should not be able to refuse to place children with qualified gay and lesbian couples.

“The bishops’ “Fortnight for Freedom” 2012 campaign is nothing more than election year political posturing,” said Phil Attey, Executive Director of Catholics for Equality. “For the past 10 years the bishops’ have earned the public branding of abusers, oppressors, and political bullies. Catholics in the pews don’t listen to them anymore and nor do political leaders … including Catholic political leaders. In order to change this political reality, the bishops need to change their branding from bully to victim. But nobody’s buying it and they’re only bringing more embarrassment to our church.”

Meanwhile, in Michigan, protesters upset over the Vatican’s recent statements regarding the Leadership Conference of Women Religious confronted a young priest over the issue. They videotaped it and put it on YouTube, but I think they wound up getting more than they bargained for:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqfpAGKzpHw

The tide is turning in the Church. Orthodoxy is on the rise, and Catholics are responding to a world that is increasingly hostile to our beliefs. Persecution is never a good thing, but it has always had a positive and unifying effect on the faithful. We won’t lie down and take it without a fight.

]]>http://www.catholicvote.org/theyre-running-scared/feed/27Pope Nicholas VI, LCWR, dying communities, and the hope that springs eternalhttp://www.catholicvote.org/pope-nicholas-vi-lcwr-dying-communities-and-the-hope-that-springs-eternal/
http://www.catholicvote.org/pope-nicholas-vi-lcwr-dying-communities-and-the-hope-that-springs-eternal/#commentsTue, 01 May 2012 11:00:50 +0000Tom Crowehttp://www.catholicvote.org/discuss/index.php?p=29649Would-be Pope Nicholas VI, Nick Kristof let us know that “we are all nuns,” and certain Church doctrines don’t matter if you do some charity work.

His first three graphs are nearly stellar.

CATHOLIC nuns are not the prissy traditionalists of caricature. No, nuns rock!

They were the first feminists, earning Ph.D.’s or working as surgeons long before it was fashionable for women to hold jobs. As managers of hospitals, schools and complex bureaucracies, they were the first female C.E.O.’s.

They are also among the bravest, toughest and most admirable people in the world. In my travels, I’ve seen heroic nuns defy warlords, pimps and bandits. Even as bishops have disgraced the church by covering up the rape of children, nuns have redeemed it with their humble work on behalf of the neediest.

See? With the exception of the too-broad of a brush with which he tars bishops, pretty spot on. (Even the “first feminists” thing I agree with, though I think those ladies would be appalled by what passes for feminism today.)

But then the next line: “So, Pope Benedict, all I can say is: You are crazy to mess with nuns.”

Benedict is not saying “stop feeding the poor, clothing the naked, teaching the children, providing shelter for the homeless, or doing any of the other corporal or spiritual works of mercy.” He’s *not* saying that. Not.

He’s saying while you’re doing those amazing and necessary and laudable and Godly things under the auspices of a Catholic community, be fully Catholic! How radical! He’s being a good father here: affirming the good, while redirecting away from the bad. Teaching with gentleness and patience (he got the report about the problems a year ago), inviting the ladies to work with the delegate, Bishop Sartain of Seattle, to come to an acceptable resolution. And a resolution is really needed based on these problems.

The article from the USCCB (linked above) lists some of the doctrinal problems:

“absence of support from LCWR for Church teaching on women’s ordination and homosexuality;”

“silent on the right to life from conception to natural death;”

“occasional public statements by the LCWR that disagree with or challenge positions taken by the Bishops, who are the Church’s authentic teachers of faith and morals.”

Nothing radical there, just plain, basic Catholicism.

Would-be Pope Nicholas VI, of course, boils it down to this: “In effect, the Vatican accused the nuns of worrying too much about the poor and not enough about abortion and gay marriage.”

Because there is a strict dichotomy between the two, or something.

Caring for the poor, the wealthy, the somewhere-in-between, or anyone else means caring for the whole person all the time, not just this need while ignoring that need. If we’re caring for a person precisely because we are Catholic then part of our caring must include caring for their soul in whatever way we are able to in the moment. So while overt proselytization doesn’t happen with every bowl of soup ladeled out or every bandage applied, all Catholics—not just nuns, here—are responsible for being prepared to give an account of their Catholic faith and the great good of the Catholic faith. The best caring we can give a person is heal their soul—it’s the essence of why Christ tied every physical healing to an affirmation of faith and sometimes a forgiveness of sins. While salvation is possible for people who are not baptized, card-carrying Catholics, charity compels us not to leave people in darkness to fend for themselves if we can dispel that darkness. You do not help a person struggling with sexual addiction by giving them a box of condoms—that encourages them. You do not help a person struggling with their sexuality by telling them there is nothing at all wrong with their inclinations—that confuses them further. You help them by pastorally helping them see the problems with their inclinations or actions, helping them realize these problems do not define them, and helping them move beyond these problems in God’s love.

I’ve not seen anyone live this the way Blessed Theresa of Calcutta and her Missionaries of Charity do. If you’ve not read Mother Teresa’s Prescription, Dr. Paul Wright’s account of spending time at the MoC mother house in Calcutta, you should. Dr. Wright’s ordeal, watching the love and care that those sisters gave the dying and dejected was unmatched. They knew they could do precious little to save many of the people of their physical pain or prevent their impending death, but they knew that what was far more important was to make sure the people knew that God loves them—even if only by seeing that these sisters loved them for no apparent reason. They don’t busily and pushily proselytize, but they affirm the value of life and hold to Catholic teaching, while loving each person profoundly.

And the Missionaries of Charity, who have a number of houses in this country, are not the only ones. Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, St. Francis Xavier Cabrini, St. Katharine Drexel, St. Rose Duchesne, St. Mother Theodore Guerin, and so many other strong women who made our country what it is by their love, but also by their strength of character and dedication to their mission.

Today we see this in women like:

The Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia, in Nashville, just built a new convent with this beautiful chapel, and they're already bursting at the seams while running schools in other parts of the country.

Or these beautiful women of God:

The Franciscan Sisters, T.O.R., of Penance of the Sorrowful Mother, who also just built a new convent, and who help out with many ministries in the Steubenville, Ohio, area and on campus here at Franciscan University.

And so many others. Young, growing, vibrant, happy communities of women faithful to the Church.

In stark, unsurprising contrast, as Kristof points out, the LCWR represents “57,000 dedicated women whose median age is well over 70.”

70?! They’re dying out. They are infertile as communities. For some of them their mother houses are becoming little more than retirement centers for the aging sisters who can’t work in the field any longer, and the jobs at the mother houses are frequently performed by hired help because there aren’t enough new vocations.

Unsurprising, really: if a young woman wants to be a social worker she can, by golly, be a social worker—a Catholic one at that—without the hassle of whatever still passes as mandatory for “religious life” in an LCWR “community.”

But if a young woman wants to be a nun, well, those pictures up above show where that young woman is turning these days.

This, of course, isn’t to say all is lost for the LCWR. The whole point of the Vatican intervention is to rescue it from going completely off the rails. The point is to help the ladies who run the show to see where their problems lie, and return to the former ways that inspired their foundresses to do big, bold work for the Lord and led so many young women to join their communities back in the day. Things will have to change, some number of the ladies probably will not want to remain with the community, some may be asked to leave, who knows. But it is necessary if these communities wish still to be considered “Catholic.”

After all, Catholic nuns can only continue to call themselves Catholic nuns so long as the Church continues to approve their founding. Catholic religious communities only exist because the Church gives them permission. Should that permission be rescinded, they cease to be Catholic religious communities. So if the Pope determines to “mess with” any religious community he can end them with the stroke of the pen. His reasons don’t even have to be particularly good—religious obedience is most virtuous when it is in obedience of an obviously less-than-wise decision (provided, of course, the action ordered is not sinful). In this case the pope has seen fit not to end them at all, but to help them mend their ways.